The Birth of the Candy Cane or as some like to call it the Peppermint Stick!

December 12, 2014

The origin of the candy cane goes back over 350 years, when candy-makers both professional and amateur were making hard sugar sticks. The original candy was straight and completely white in color. The first historical reference to the familiar cane shape goes back to 1670, when the choirmaster at the Cologne Cathedral in Germany, bent the sugar-sticks into canes to represent a shepherd’s staff. The first historical reference to the candy cane being in “America” goes back to 1847, when a German immigrant called August Imgard decorated the Christmas tree in his Wooster, Ohio home with candy canes.

The stripes came about fifty years later the first red-and-white striped candy canes appeared. No one knows who exactly invented the stripes, but Christmas cards prior to the year 1900 showed only all-white candy canes. From its plain early beginnings to its familiar shape and color of today, there is no real historical evidence to support these claims, but the candy cane is a symbol of Christmas and a reminder of the meaning of the holiday.